Many deadly viruses, diseases, and toxins are known to have occurred naturally, but some did not. In fact, some of them were man-made. Even the viruses that remain with their cures undiscovered were made in science laboratories. But how do these viruses find their way out of science laboratories? That’s a good question. Scientists have accomplished many successes, but some successes too can also lead to bad consequences. This list reveals some of the man-made viruses, diseases, and toxins that are dangerous when used as chemical or biological weapons. Some even have the highest death-rates in the world. Would they have not been made in the first place, hundreds of millions killed by them could have lived. But some viruses and diseases on this list were made in an attempt to study their potential and discover their cures. Their makers probably didn't have bad intentions when they made them, although they knew the risk.
10. Tabun
Tabun is a man-made nerve agent that is not found naturally in the environment. It is a tasteless, colorless to brownish chemical with a faint fruity odor. It was invented by a German chemist named Gerhard Schrader, in the mid 1930's. Its material is similar to those used in pesticides, but it is more poisonous and fast acting. When the liquid form of Tabun is exposed to high temperatures, it turns into vapour and settle in low-lying areas. This is the kind of chemical that you wouldn't want to put in your home, even in a sealed bottle or container because someone – especially your children, might get into contact with it. It is lethal whether absorbed through the skin, eye-contact, and even when inhaled as a gas from contaminated air. Death from skin absorption may be delayed, but an inhaled dosage kills in one to ten minutes. Hitler also used tabun as a destructive weapon against the Britain Allies, but despite how effective the gas was to the troops, he later stopped using the gas against them. If he continued to use it as a weapon against the allied soldiers, millions could have died. This brings us to the curiosity of whether the Nazi scientist, Otto Ambros, who was also a board member of the IG Farben to help mastermind the firm's chemical weapons section, had been the one who deprived Hiltler from using tabun against the Allied soldiers [LINK 1].
Symptoms of Tabun exposure include drooling, breathing difficulties, excessive sweating, vomiting, involuntary urination and defecation, and pinpointing of the eye pupils. It is also possible that Tabun and other nerve agents were used in chemical warfare during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980's.
9. Anthrax
Anthrax is a disease that can kill most living organisms. It is also one of the diseases that are acknowledged as bio-weapons. In the wild, it can even kill most animals including Elephants and Lions, but some predators have a lot more resistance to it than hoofed-mammals. Animals that die of anthrax have spores formed by the bacteria inside of them. These spores consist of a triple protein-like coat around the core of DNA, and they become dormant. Even on the soil and water, the spores can remain viable for years and, when breathed or in contact with another organism, they become active and infect it. A natural occurring anthrax does exist, but scientist discovered that the anthrax bacterium can also be grown in a laboratory to make the man-made version of Anthrax. In 1979, there was an accidental release of spores from a military research laboratory that caused at least 79 cases of respiratory infection and 68 deaths [LINK 2]. A terrorist group also released anthrax throughout Tokyo on eight occasions. In 2001, there was another incident of a man who was killed by the man-made version of the virus [LINK 3].
When anthrax spores are made, they can be stored for considerable periods of time. If the spores have lodged in the lungs and have caused an infection, nine out of ten patients die. That's how deadly anthrax is. During the 70's, the World Health Organization estimated that if 50kg of anthrax be released from an aircraft over an urban population of 5 million, there would be more than 250,000 cases of the disease. Another report in 1993 estimated that releasing a cloud of 100kg of spores upwind of Washington DC could cause between 130,000 and 3 million deaths. We should really hope that bio-terrorists don't use it as a destructive weapon against the world.
8. Swine Flu
The swine flu became a big threat to the public when it was discovered in humans. During that time when people got infected by it, many had thought that the virus was probably a natural influenza. Now researchers had proven that there’s no evidence of the Swine flu (H1N1) to have reasserted naturally [LINK 4]. According to experts, the swine flu that was exposed to the public of Mexico in 2009 could not have occurred naturally. Swine flu can be artificially engineered in laboratories by bio-terrorists, and this could be the reason why the swine flu pandemic was regarded as “man-made”. Some bio-terrorism experts still think that the swine flu was an intentional epidemic, and if so, more proof is all we need. Scientists claimed that the swine flu pandemic may have been caused by an accidental leak from a laboratory in 1977 [LINK 5]. So far, there is more evidence of the swine flu being a "man-made pandemic", but everybody is not yet convinced that it probably escaped the laboratory. And even if the swine flu was not intentionally made as a bio-weapon, why did they make laboratory experiments on the virus in the first place if they knew the risk of a man-made pandemic? That’s just another question that they'll probably answer with another convincing claim.
7. Yersinia Pestis
Yersinia Pestis is a bacterium that is behind "The Black Death" plague that swept through Europe six centuries ago. The plague caused up to 50 million deaths (half of Europe's population during that time) [LINK 6]. The Black Death occurred naturally because there was no sophisticated technology for bio-engineering in the 14th century. Now that we do have that technology in the 21st century, a team of German, Canadian and US Scientists had recreated the plague [LINK 7]. They have extracted dried blood from the teeth of a few of the 14th century victims exhumed from a London graveyard. They used new techniques of modern disease strains to extract the plague's DNA from the teeth and re-created the new version. Although the scientists say that even if the bug escapes the lab it won't be a bigger threat as it was six centuries ago, it can still be used as a bio-weapon by bio-terrorists [LINK 8]. But the scientists claim that the disease's spread would be prevented because we now live in a world that is different from medieval Europe. This makes us wonder why they failed to prevent the deaths caused by other man-made viruses and diseases that have also escaped military laboratories in the past.
6. H5N1 Flu Virus
In 2011, a deadly flu virus with the potential to kill up to half the world's population was announced to be created. The virus is an avian H5N1 bird flu that was genetically altered to become more contagious. Now it is able to transmit from human to human. The virus was created by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Fouchier presented his work to the public at an influenza conference [LINK 9], but academics and bioterrorism experts argued whether to publish the recipe. They argued that releasing such information could provide any bio-terrorist with a ready recipe they can use to kill millions [LINK 10]. Some experts say such work should have not been done in the first place [lINK 13]. But other researchers said the experiment on the virus is crucial for understanding the public health risk posed viruses circulating in birds. They also believe that the knowledge gained will be vital for the development of vaccines and drugs. What made the virus creation more dangerous is the fact that it was made in a University Lab, instead of a military facility. The world could face the worst nightmare if it escapes the laboratory. The H5N1 has killed hundreds of millions of birds since 1996. Now that the flu is transmissible to humans, you can just imagine what will happen if this goes into a global pandemic. It is scary from different angles. If a scientist wants information about a particular virus to have the vaccines and therateutics in place, such knowledge is needed. The real worry only comes in from a bio-security perspective.
5. H7N9 Flu Virus
H7N9 is an avian influenza that has been detected in birds in the past. As was the case with the H5N1 influenza strains before it was mutated, the natural occurring H7N9 is also not easily transmittable between humans. But Ron Fouchier – the scientist behind a proposal made in 2011 to create the H5N1 that is easily transmittable between humans, had similar plans for the new H7N9 [LINK 11]. Mr. Fouchier and his colleagues stated that they have gained knowledge on the studies made on the H5N1. They are certain that mutating the H5N1 has contributed to their understanding of host adaptation by influenza viruses, including the development of vaccines and improved surveillance. However, some professors in the department of medicine criticized the idea. They said that Fouchier and his colleagues can't do surveillance, nor do they work on vaccine development. Two years after Fouchier and his team's controversial experiments on the H5N1, they haven't contributed to any improvement in the ability to control a pandemic. "They also haven't shown how to develop a better vaccine," say's the critics from the Department of Medicine. But despite the criticism, Ron and his team made a point that the risk of a pandemic caused by an influenza virus exists in nature. If the virus mutates naturally to become easily transmittable between humans and no research on the virus has been done, it might be too late to counter any resistance it has gathered along the way. Their proposal letter pointed out that some H7N9 patients being treated with the primary virus anti-measures had already developed a resistance to those measures. Just like the H5N1, it is possible for the H7N9 to be developed by terrorists and used as a bio-weapon. There was no case of any human infected with the H7N9 bird flu virus until 2 family related individuals were reported to have been infected by it in Eastern China, March, 2013. Since then, the virus has killed over 40 people and sickened a 100 more. And now that the H7N9 was mutated and already had infected and killed people in China, there were accusations being made that it was released by the U.S government as a biological warfare attack against China [LINK 12].
4. Ebola
At first, there were only uncertain claims that the Ebola virus was created by the US military. Now it is finally a reality that Ebola is, indeed, a man-made virus. The fact that the Ebola virus escaped the laboratory is the reason why it is still being argued whether it was created with intentions of using it as a bio-weapon. And because Ebola can indeed be used as a biological weapon [LINK 14], developing it was truly a risk. Just like Aids, the Ebola virus did not originate from monkeys left alone in the wild; they were bio-engineered in military American laboratories. Evidence revealed in Dr. Leonard Horowitz book published in 1996 concluded that the viruses – Ebola and Aids, which now threaten humanity's survival, evolved from early cancer vaccine experiments in which top military pharmaceutical scientists infected monkeys with viral genes from other animals [LINK 15]. The reason why these viruses evolved during those experiments is because those contaminated monkeys were used in the development of preventive vaccines later tested on humans. Evidence that these viruses evolved naturally is minimal and circumstantial.
3. Inhalation Botulism
Inhalation Botulism is a man-made form of a disease that results from inhaling aerosolized Botulinum toxin [LINK 16]. The toxin is among the most poisonous substances known to humans. It is considered a major biological threat because it is easy to make and very deadly. However, three forms of naturally occurring botulism affecting humans do exist, which is by food-borne, wound, and intestinal. Injecting just 2 billionth of a gram of the substance is enough to kill an adult. Currently, there are eight stereotypes of the toxin: A, B, C1, C2, D, E, F, G and H. They are all produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum which can damage the human body by blocking acetylcholine – a neurotransmitter that leads to muscle paralysis. Many scientists believe that the toxin can be used as a bio-weapon [LINK 17]. This is why this genetic sequence has been kept hidden from public database over security concerns.
2. Sarin
Sarin is a human-made chemical warfare agent classified as a nerve agent [LINK 18]. It is colorless, odorless, and has no flavor. It was developed in Germany, 1938, by researchers at IG Farben for use as a pesticide. Just like tabun, people can be exposed to sarin by inhaling air that contains it, including through skin contact and eye contact. Exposure to sarin also causes symptoms similar to those produced by tabun. When sarin vapour is released into the air, it sinks in low-lying areas or toward the bottom of the ground. It was used in two bio-terrorist attacks in Japan, 1994 and 1995 [LINK 19]. The 1995 attack was made by the Aum Shinrikyo sect that killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000 people on the Tokyo subway [LINK 20]. We can just imagine the number of deaths it would cause if released from an aircraft above a highly populated area.
1. HIV/Aids
When the HIV was discovered, many researchers tried to figure out whether it is a man-made virus or a natural pathogen. As I have mentioned in item number 4 of this list, the first researcher who concluded that Aids, including Ebola, were bioengineered in laboratories was Dr. Horowitz. And that was in 1996. Today it is finally revealed that a scientist named Robert Gallo is the one who invented Aids. Gallo was also the man who proved that HIV causes Aids; he then developed the test that safeguards the world's blood supply against the disease. But Robert Gallo also had a long squabble with another team of scientists from France led by Luc Montagnier, over who really discovered the HI virus [LINK 21]. The credit of the HIV discovery was later given to Robert Gallo, who has also generated more than $1 billion in private-sector revenues with all of his discoveries.
On April 1984, Robert Gallo also filed a United States patent application for inventing the HI virus [LINK 21]. But it all started in 1975 when Gallo isolated a retrovirus from human leukemia cells. He then faced humiliation when presenting his discovery at a Virus-Cancer program's yearly conference. Other scientists tested the virus and realized that it is a mixture of contaminating retroviruses from woolly monkeys, gibbon apes, and baboons. Robert tried to save his reputation, claiming that perhaps one of the monkey viruses caused the human leukemia. But unfortunately, his speculation did not convince anyone. I suppose this is the reason why Aids was thought to have originated from monkeys.
In 1980, Robert Gallo was finally credited for discovering the first human retrovirus – HTLV-I. But he didn't stop there with the HTLV-I; he isolated a second one in 1982, which was then called the HTL-V II. In 1984, he finally presented the world with the third one – called HTLV-III, which was renamed the "HI virus" or "HIV". But some medical masterminds still call it the HIV virus – maybe they think that the "V" probably stands for Voodoo.
